XIV. CHAP. cades had been stripped of their arms, deprived of their leaders, and so thinned in numbers as to be unequal to any serious conflict, and their helplessness was completed by the sudden disappearance of the street captains and the chiefs of secret societies, who had been seized in the night between the 1st and 2d of December. The Committee of Still there was a remnant of the old insurrecResistance. tionary forces, which was willing to try the experiment of throwing up a few barricades, and there was, besides, a small number of men who were impelled in the same direction by motives of a different and almost opposite kind. These last were men too brave, too proud, too faithful in their love of right and freedom, to be capable of acquiescing for even a week in the transactions of the December night. The foremost of these was the illustrious Victor Hugo. He and some of the other members of the Assembly who had escaped seizure, formed themselves into a Committee of Resistance, with a view to assert by arms the supremacy of the law. This step they took on the 2d of December. Attempted Several members of the Assembly went into the Faubourg St Antoine, and strove to raise the people. These Deputies were Schoelcher, Baudin, Aubry, Duval, Chaix, Malardier, and De Flotte, and they were vigorously supported by Cournet, whose residence became their headquarters, and by Xavier Durrieu, Kesler, Ruin, Lemaitre, Wabripon, Le Jeune, and other men connected with the democratic press. More, it would seem, by XIV. Rue St Marguerite. their personal energy than by the aid of the CHAP. people, these men threw up a slight barricade at the corner of the Rue St Marguerite. Against The barri this there marched a battalion of the 19th Regiment; and then there occurred a scene which may make one smile for a moment, and may then almost force one to admire the touching pedantry of brave men, who imagined that, without policy or warlike means, they could be strong with the mere strength of the law. Laying aside their firearms, and throwing across their shoulders scarfs which marked them as Representatives of the People, the Deputies ranged themselves in front of the barricade, and one of them, Charles Baudin, held ready in his hand the book of the Constitution. When the head of the column was within a few yards of the barricade, it was halted. For some moments there was silence. Law and Force had met. On the one side was the Code democratic, which France had declared to be perpetual; on the other a battalion of the line. Charles Baudin, pointing to his book, began to show what he held to be the clear duty of the battalion; but the whole basis of his argument was an assumption that the law ought to be obeyed; and it seems that the officer in command refused to concede what logicians call the 'major premiss,' for, instead of accepting its necessary consequence, he gave an impatient sign. Suddenly the muskets of the front-rank men came down, came up, came level; and in another instant their fire pelted straight into the group of the scarfed Deputies. XIV. CHAP. Baudin fell dead, his head being shattered by more than one ball. One other was killed by the volley; several more were wounded. The book of the Constitution had fallen to the ground, and the defenders of the law recurred to their firearms. They shot the officer who had caused the death of their comrade and questioned their major premiss. There was a fight of the Homeric sort for the body of Charles Baudin. The battalion won it. Four soldiers carried it off* Plainly this attempted insurrection in the Faubourg St Antoine was without the support of the multitude. It died Barricades in central Paris. out. The Committee of Resistance now caused barricades to be thrown up in that mass of streets between the Hôtel de Ville and the Boulevard, which is the accustomed centre of an insurrection in Paris; but they were not strong enough to occupy the houses, and therefore the troops passed through the streets without danger, and easily took every barricade which they encountered. When the troops retired, the barricades again sprang up, but only to be again taken. This state of things continued during part of the 3d of December; but afterwards the efforts of the troops were relaxed, and, during the night and the whole forenoon of the next day, the formation of barricades in the centre of Paris was allowed to go on without encountering serious interruption.+ * Xavier Durrieu, pp. 23, 24. +Magnan's Despatch, given in the 'Moniteur.' VII. XIV. State of o'clock the troops. At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 4th, the CHAP. condition of Paris was this:—The mass of streets which lies between the Boulevard and the neigh- Paris at bourhood of the Hôtel de Ville was barricaded, two and held without combating by the insurgents; of Dec. but the rest of the city was free from grave disturbance. The army was impending. It was nearly forty-eight thousand strong,* and comprised a force of all arms, including cavalry, infantry, artillery, engineers, and gendarmes. Large bodies of infantry were so posted that brigades Attitude of advancing from all the quarters of the compass could simultaneously converge upon the barricaded district. Besides that, by the means already shown, the troops had been wrought into a feeling of hatred against the people of Paris, they had clearly been made to understand that they were to allow no consideration for bystanders to interfere with their fire, that they were to give no quarter, and that they were to put to death not only the combatants whom they might see in arms against them, but those also who, without having been seen in the act, might nevertheless be deemed to have taken part against them. When it is remembered that the duty-the judicial duty-of bringing people within this last category was cast upon raging soldiers, it will be clear that the army * 47,928. Mauduit, tabular state facing page 302.--Note to 4th Edition, 1863. XIV. CHAP. of Paris was brought into the streets with instructions well fitted to bring about the events which marked the afternoon of the 4th of December.* For reasons which then remained unknown, the troops were abstaining from action, and there was a good distance between the heads of the columns and the outposts of the insurgents. Hesitation It is plain that, either because of his own of Magnan. hesitation, or because of the hesitation of the President or M. St Arnaud, the General in com grounds. mand of the army was hanging back; † and in truth, though the mere physical task which he Its probable had to perform was a slight one, Magnan could not but see that, politically, he had got into danger. The mechanical arrangements of the night of the 2d of December had met with a success which was wondrously complete; but in other respects the enterprise of the Elysian brethren seemed to be failing, for no one of mark and character had come forward to abet the President. There were many lovers of order and tran * My knowledge as to what the troops were made to understand is derived from a source highly favourable to the Elysée. Magnan, in his Despatch, accounts for his delay in words which tend to justify the conclusion of those who believe that the opportunity of inflicting slaughter on the people of Paris was deliberately sought for and prepared; but I am not inclined to believe that for such an object a French General would throw away the first seven hours of a short December day, and therefore, so far as concerns his motives, I reject Magnan's statement. I consider that the disclosures made before the Chamber of Peers, in 1840, give me a right to use my own judgment in determining the weight which is due to this person's assertions. |